Puerto Rico and the United States
Is Puerto Rico a U.S possession? 1898 "Puerto Rico as a Permanent Possession," is an article published in The New York Times on July 11, 1898 by an American business man. It's about taking over Puerto Rico. The United States took Puerto Rico as a possession and kept it. This 1898 article states that " The U.S. Should take Puerto Rico as its possession and keep it for all time." I find that rude. There's no doubt that the U.S. can take over P.R. But why humiliate them by saying, " take Puerto Rico as its possession"? The only people that have a say in this text is the Americans. What about the people in P.R.? what do they think? what do they want?. The only Reason the U.S. wants P.R. is because it's a nice vacation spot. And they're looking for a new way to get money. I find myself thinking about how this text takes the perspective that I think that the U.S benefits from this and the people that are hurt are the Puerto Rican Population. Operation Bootstrap: Success or Failure? An article in The People's Voice: Puerto Rico Culture and History is interesting and educational. It's mostly about this operation that had an impact on the Puerto Rican economy and encouraged Puerto Ricans to build hospitals and to train people to become doctors. Successes What the operation didn't do was keep thier work progress.They started falling off thier work. The more they got paid, the higher the food prices went. The factories didn't want to pay the people more money so they left.New Industries took place in puerto rico and began companies. Even though they paid higher wages, not everyone was able to recieve employment. If you read nothing of this text, read this paragraph you'll get the gist of it: "In the beginning of Operation Bootstrap, (1945) there were many social and economic gains. Health care improved and the average life expectancy grew until it almost reached that of the united states. The average yearly in come increased more than eight times.There were also major poret and highway improvements." What the author wants me to think is operation bootstrap is all good and you can find out that information on the first page, but it aint. Operation bootstrap is unfair and mismanaged. In this text money has a big impact. The only real reason America took over Puerto Rico is because they saw that they could make money, benfit from Puerto Rico's rich land and and get the great natural resources that Puerto Rico has. After the 15 to 17 year tax period many of the new industries that employed a lot of people left Puerto Rico.They moved to other countries such as the Dominican Republic and Haiti where they could pay workers less money. Failures Would P.R. be better without America? P.R can do better without the americans and that the puerto ricans were strong enough to make it on their own.U.S helped the Puerto Ricans by giving them food stamps. Justice is not pursued in this article. If it was, then they would put what the Puerto Ricans believe. People can write articles like this only because the U.S. has taken over P.R. The American people judge what they think on this article. The only people that benifit from this article is the Americans. They excluded the Puerto Ricans for a reason. They probally have good reasons to why their land should not be taken over. But the U.S. won't listen. This text was written 107 years ago. In The New York Times. Hopefully, the U.S. has improved since then. They Got Them (P.R and D.R) If i had to squish these article into one or two words I would say "editable" and "uneditable". What I mean is that they found out how to pay the people more cheaper so they moved the factories to D.R. So while they were paying people in P.R. 25 cents an hour they were paying people in D.R. 20 cents an hour. so thats what the people edit about the factories to pay them less. But people knew that they were paying the cheapers so some people would quit so that why it wasnt editable cause some quite the job cause of the money. To me the author wants me to know how the U.S factories destoried Puerto Rico and the way they did the same to Dominican Republic. What the passage makes me think that they put factories in propertys that wasnt even their and it wasn't theirs to begin with. The way the author wrote it it made me feel angry because the way they put factories in P.R. But I got happy when they move to D.R but also angry because they put factories there like they did in P.R. and they dont even ask. What is expilicit in this article is that the american are cheaters and cheap people. Puerto Rico Starves Continued... ashleys dr icon: If I had to switch this whole text into just one or two words, I would pick devastating. The most significant line in this article is where Dona Licha says "I thought it was a curse from the devil.It looked like a plague on my life. I cried for days. I thought we were finished." I think this is very important because this is based on a tragedy that happened in Puerto Rico, and this is something that a woman who had to face the tragedy said. The author wants me to know that everybody suffers in life, and this was just something that a lot of people had to suffer with, but we as people can grow stronger and overcome the fear and anxiety. The author acomplishes this, by writing a descriptive article to get the message across to readers everywhere who pick up this article to read. This text makes the way the people had to live after this very explicit, because he includes a lot of quotes, making sure to write down everything the people said. The subtext to this article is that we should appreciate the life we live and the people we live with because weather it is a tsunami, a terrorist attack or a deadly decrese in our food supply, we should apreciate everything and not take anything for granted. My mind has changed about the way I think of Puerto Rico, I now know more about it.